Well I've made it to the last city on my trek before meeting up with my family. I'm leaving Mayrhofen now after leaving Matt, McLean and Anna up in the Alps - I'm sure they'll manage to find a place to sleep for the night. On Tuesday morning I took a train from Fussen, Germany down to Innsbruck, Austria where I was meeting up with the gang. After arranging a hostel for the four of us, I then went to the train station a few times to pick everyone up and take them back to the hostel. Anna arrived first and then Matt and McLean showed up on a midnight train. Our hostel was an awesome find - it was in an old historic building in the middle of the old city in Innsbruck. We managed to get a private room for four which included a kitchen stocked with pasta and all kinds of cooking/eating items. So that took care of dinner for the night. The hostel was so old that they didn't even have machines for processing credit cards, so I am now officially out of all euros (although I'm still stocked on swedish kronas, swiss franks, and us dollars, none of which do me any good).

After everyone arrived into town, we hung out for a bit that night before getting some rest for the next day. The following morning we woke up and were treated to breakfast at the oldest cafe in the town (turns out we were not only in a hostel but a bed and breakfast, even better!). After some food, we packed up and headed for the train station where we caught a train to Mayrhofen, a small town about 1.5 hours outside of Innsbruck. Once we arrived, we glanced at a map, stashed some gear in lockers, grabbed a few key grocery items (bread, meat sticks and chocolate) and took off for the mountains. We spent the afternoon hiking up the mountain to Wasserfall, a one-building stop with a lake and lots of small waterfalls falling off the alps into the lake. It was a great hike and we managed to pass by numerous cows along the way (I'm not sure why, but there was kissing of the cows involved at one point...). Once we arrived at Mayrhofen, I found a bus that would take me back down the mountain towards the train station and the rest of the gang kept hiking off into the valley where they were hoping to stay at one of the hostel huts along the path. They will be hiking the alps for the next four days before McLean has to fly back to the US on Sunday. I'm now waiting in the train where I will eventually be arriving in Rome in the morning to meet the fam, where the real fun begins :) I'm fairly certain my mom will be bringing along a month's supply of underwear for me which will sufficiently overflow my backpack for the summer. So for now, my time in the alps is up and I'm off to see other parts of Europe, however I have a sneaky suspicion that I will find myself back here at some point in the near future, they're too addicting.